Best of Boston

BEST Late-Night Dining

Once a certain hour hits, most restaurants make the switch from carefully designed entrées to standard-issue flatbread pizzas. Not so at Tavern Road, where Louis DiBiccari’s late-night menu sparkles with verve and inventiveness, as evidenced by delights like lamb meatballs… read more »

Every evening, somewhere around midnight, a magical—if vaguely treacherous—moment occurs in Boston. High up onto the back bar of one of the city’s most beloved restaurants clambers an employee who, teetering precariously, writes the late-night specials onto a gargantuan mirror…. read more »

Ferreting out a well-made cocktail and inventive cuisine—minus the pretense—can be a tall order anywhere. Find them in a North Shore beach town at 11 p.m., and it’s like striking gold. Discriminating night owls flock to the Franklin Cape Ann,… read more »

Three years after its feverishly hyped opening, the South End’s Stella draws a dinner crowd that’s more Newton-Wellesley than bright-young-thing. After those diners have retreated is when the insider action at this stylish modern Italian restaurant gets under way. Until… read more »

At Sel de la Terre, eating after 10 p.m. doesn’t equal tired hamburgers and stale coffee. The late-night sustenance it offers comes with a gourmet touch: Chicken fingers are served with honey-mustard aioli, Vermont cheddar is melted over brioche, and… read more »

Sure, there’s what seems like an interminable wait for one of the nine tables. But that’s only because all the hipsters who got here before you want to savor every bite of their fashionably late dinners of adobo-rubbed pork and… read more »

When we want to pray to the god of late-night dining (“Please let it be open!”), this is the temple where we come to worship. It offers sandwiches, pizza, and sophisticated small plates—wasabi-laden tuna tartare, spicy crab cakes—to satisfy all… read more »